Archive for the ‘Marketing Theory’ Category

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Many Kinds of Marketing

Friday, November 18th, 2011

Marketers are a creative bunch, and we like to create new things. But sometimes the pursuit of the “new” can go overboard. I started thinking about all the different kinds of “marketing” I’ve experienced, and the list began to get a bit ridiculous. Below are the kinds of marketing I thought of in the last few minutes. Have you heard of them all? Are there any others I forgot?

  • Affiliate Marketing
  • B2B Marketing
  • B2C Marketing
  • Buzz Marketing
  • Cross-Marketing
  • Door-to-Door Marketing
  • Email Marketing
  • Grassroots Marketing
  • Guerilla Marketing
  • Internal Marketing
  • Long-Tail Marketing
  • Loyalty Marketing
  • Niche Marketing
  • Permission Marketing
  • Viral Marketing
  • Social Media Marketing
  • Telemarketing
  • Traditional Marketing
  • Viral Marketing
  • Web Marketing
  • Word-of-mouth Marketing

The problem is that marketing doesn’t really work when it’s so highly segmented. Customers don’t care about the differences between a business’s loyalty marketing efforts and social media marketing strategy. And a customer doesn’t know when they’re being targeted by the web marketing team or the traditional marketing team.

To the customer, it’s all just marketing… even the activities that the marketing team aren’t responsible for, like billing.

In the end, it doesn’t really matter what you call your marketing, as long as it all works together to help you customer have a great experience.

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Posted in Marketing, Marketing Theory | No Comments »

Marketing is easy when you’re awesome

Friday, October 14th, 2011

A couple weeks ago, I published a post imploring businesses to be good. Being good is important for your business, though it might not make your marketing any easier. But what if your business is not just good, it’s awesome? Being awesome opens the door to great marketing opportunities that makes your marketing strategy easy.

Here are three ways marketing is easy when you’re awesome:

1. PR and social media are easy

For many businesses, developing a compelling PR and social media strategy is hard– what do we say? who will care? who will spread the message? But for businesses that are awesome, PR is easy.

Grady Veterinary Hospital in Cincinnati, OH accepts animals in need from the SPCA. Right now, they are caring for a kitten that had been set on fire and loosed on a city street. Each day, they provide updates on the little guy’s progress. Because they do awesome things, their public relations and social media strategy is easy: Tell stories about the wonderful animals we help.

2. Word of mouth marketing is easy

It’s pretty obvious that if your business is awesome, your customers will want to talk about you. That’s the essence of word of mouth marketing. Give your customers something to talk about– a charitable initiative, an innovative application of your product or service that goes above and beyond what they could have imagined.

The BonBonerie is an extremely successful confectioner here in Cincinnati. Customer demand is so strong that they have an entire cafe dedicated to wedding cake tastings. Their business has been built mostly on word-of-mouth marketing because their business is amazing. The beautiful cakes, delicious flavors and careful service give customers plenty to rave about. Crafting this business wasn’t easy, but the word of mouth marketing is creating itself.

3. Employee satisfaction is easy

Happy employees make happy customers. When an employee believes in what she does, she wants to help each customer as much as she can. And, no surprise, employees find it easiest to believe in awesome employers.

When I worked at Apple, my fellow employees were 100% dedicated to the company’s way of doing business. Apple has a great employee training program and customer service methodology, and the employees already believe wholeheartedly in the products they sell. Because employees believe the company is awesome, they are able to provide customers with awesome experiences.

Marketing is easy when you’re awesome. “But my business isn’t awesome,” you might reply. So what are you going to do about it?

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Posted in Employees, Marketing, Marketing Theory, Public Relations, Small Business, word-of-mouth marketing | 1 Comment »

5 Tips for Writing Great Marketing Copy

Friday, August 26th, 2011

Although marketers aren’t typically viewed as writers, every aspect of great marketing requires talented writing and precise editing. If there are any doubters, just observe this example from Starbucks:

Not only is this poster confusing, it has a glaring typo. The main message– Get $1 off any pastry when you buy a beverage– is overshadowed by the “it’s.” I imagine Starbucks patrons are more discerning about grammar than most (which is why one of my friends posted this picture on Facebook).

Of course posters aren’t the only form of marketing writing. Here’s a sampling of the kinds of marketing writing most businesses need:

  • Advertising copy
  • Brochure copy
  • Sign copy
  • Website copy
  • Direct mail copy
  • Blog articles
  • Trade journal articles
  • Press releases
  • Facebook posts
  • Twitter updates
  • Product packaging
  • Radio ad scripts
  • TV ad scripts
  • Telephone scripts
  • YouTube video scripts
  • Proposals and contracts
  • Presentations
  • Speeches
  • User guides and manuals

Writing for marketing is usually termed, “copy,” which is such an uninspiring word. The Online Etymology Dictionary traces the term to its roots:

copy (n.) Look up copy at Dictionary.com
early 14c., “written account or record,” from O.Fr. copie (13c.), from M.L. copia “reproduction, transcript,” from L. copia “plenty, means” (see copious). Sense extended 15c. to any specimen of writing (especially MS for a printer) and any reproduction or imitation. Related: Copyist.

The roots of “copy” are not very exciting. We may be stuck with a word that has connotations of automation and transcripting, but we don’t need to fulfill that history. Marketing copy should be fresh and vibrant, effectively communicating your brand. Following are a few tips for writing great marketing copy:

5 Tips for Writing Great Marketing Copy

1. Cut, cut and cut

Just because marketing copy is important doesn’t mean it should exist in abundance. There’s an inverse correlation between the quality of marketing copy and its length. There’s a simple reason for this equation– customers are confronted with thousands of messages each day and have short attention spans when it comes to your product. So cut out everything that isn’t essential.

2. Communicate one message at a time

Each marketing piece a marketer writes can only communicate one message well, no matter how many messages the marketer may try to cram into the space. A postcard, a landing page, a radio ad– all of these represent a brief opportunity to communicate one message. Try to tell your company’s whole story, and customers will be overwhelmed or bored.

3. Give copy room to breathe

“White space” is the term for the spacing and margins around your copy. Spacing your words nicely and keeping the graphics surrounding the them simple will allow your copy to stand out and increase the chances customers will read it.

4. Practice makes better

Practice doesn’t make perfect. Writing is never perfect, but eventually marketers reach deadlines. Never go with the first attempt at writing copy. Edit and revise until the final product is better than when you started.

5. Let someone else read it before you publish it

Don’t publish or print marketing copy before having someone else proofread it. Your familiarity with the text will cause your brain to skip over any typos, seeing what you intended to write instead of what was actually written. I imagine that’s what happened to the poor Starbucks copywriter in the poster example.

These five marketing copy tips certainly aren’t comprehensive, but they are rules that every writer keeps in mind during each assignment. Using them every day in your marketing efforts will lead to more effective (and more interesting) marketing copy.

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Posted in Advertising, Blogging, Internet, Marketing Theory, Pay Per Click Advertising, Public Relations, Taglines, Writing | 1 Comment »

Facebook Marketing Tips

Thursday, July 28th, 2011

Facebook marketing is becoming increasingly important for certain kinds of businesses. These include locally owned businesses, brands with exceptional personality and organizations that inspire great loyalty in their customers.  Sixty-one percent of Internet users visit social networking sites, like Facebook. Chances are, a percentage of your customers visit Facebook every single day (or multiple times a day!).

The basic building blocks of marketing on Facebook are to develop a page for your business, regularly update that page and advertise to get customers to ‘like’ your page. Once a customer ‘likes’ your page, your updates will display on their wall; their friends will be able to see that they ‘like’ you, and they will have a chance to interact with your business on Facebook.

If you do a great job marketing on Facebook, customers will engage with you, recommend you to their friends and stay interested in all of your updates. Your page will be a great marketing tool that your customers will enjoy. If you do a bad job with Facebook marketing, customers will ‘hide’ your posts, and your efforts will be useless. If you do a really bad job, customers will ‘unlike’ your page and tell their friends about their bad experiences.

To help you do a great job with Facebook marketing, I’ve put together some Facebook marketing tips. To illustrate my tips, I’m using posts from the Cincinnati Zoo’s Facebook page. With 60,000 ‘likes’ and 2,500 check-ins, this marketing effort is extraordinarily successful. A quick glance at the page shows why their Facebook marketing works– the Cincinnati Zoo has implemented marketing strategies that attract interest and interaction from its customer base.

1. Post interesting content on Facebook.

Content is king. Content keeps your customers interested and keeps your business top-of-mind. Like this video post from the Cincinnati Zoo:

Not every business can post a video of a baby bearcat, but you must develop content that will be interesting to your customers. Try to post many different types of media like pictures, videos and blog posts. Strike a balance between entertaining, informational and promotional content.

2. Motivate your customers to interact on your Facebook page.

One way Facebook marketing is different from email marketing is that the customers can talk back to you. Inspiring interaction is a great way to get customers more involved with your business. The Cincinnati Zoo has a contest every Friday, soliciting photo captions, like the one below:

This particular contest received 346 comments, 149 likes and many voters on the individual comments. That kind of participation is well worth the prize given away. Other ways to encourage participation would be to have a poll, ask for picture and video submissions or simply asking an intriguing question.

3. Respond to your customers’ questions.

Before a joint event with the Zoo and the Cincinnati Reds, I posted a question on the Zoo’s Facebook posting. Someone answered my question in under an hour. By responding to questions quickly, you teach your customers that your Facebook page is a resource they should keep returning to.

4. Be subtle with your sales.

Facebook users are on the site to get updates on their friends, share about themselves, be entertained and learn interesting facts. They aren’t on Facebook to see advertisements on their walls. Here’s a subtle way the Cincinnati Zoo promoted their summer camp:

The Facebook poster shared a child’s experience and asked others to share their children’s experiences. It started a nice dialogue, but the real goal was to educate customers about the existence of a summer camp. It’s fine to occasionally post informational updates about a new product or your annual sale, but do it in a way that will interest your customers. Just posting a picture and a price isn’t enough.

These are just four tips to help your Facebook marketing, and following them is crucial to building a successful presence. There’s lots more to learn to become a Facebook marketing expert, though. If you have specific questions about your business’s unique situation or offerings, feel free to email me: amanda@zooinajungle.com

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Posted in Advertising, Customer Experience, Marketing Theory, Social Networking, word-of-mouth marketing | 1 Comment »

Marketing Throughout the Lifecycle

Friday, July 22nd, 2011

Do you have different marketing strategies for interacting with customers at each phase of the customer lifecycle? Most businesses don’t, but they should. The cost of acquiring a new customer can be quite high– think of traditional metrics like CPM, CPC or less traditional ones like the time spent making unfruitful sales calls and writing proposals. However, the cost of keeping a customer is usually much less. (Additionally, the cost for getting referrals from your customers is often nothing.)

There are many different customer lifecycle models, but I like Steve Yastrow’s. In fact, he wrote a great article about the topic, “Most Companies Stop Marketing.” Here’s his model:

As illustrated, most businesses focus their marketing on helping customers learn about them, then slack off when it comes to purchasing and the ongoing customer relationship. Think of it like the cable TV, wireless phone provider or car insurance model: reel customers in with a great deal, then see how much hassle you can get them to put up with before a competitor entices them with a better deal. Most businesses aren’t quite as blatant as this, but the result is the same– customers get upset or bored with them and move to a competitor.

Your business will have an incredible competitive advantage if you develop and implement marketing strategies for keeping your customers. When competitors lose their customers, those customers will come to you. And these customers will stay with you, breaking the cycle of fickleness.

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Posted in Customer Experience, Marketing Theory, Relationships, word-of-mouth marketing | No Comments »

Know Your Customer

Friday, July 8th, 2011

An effective marketing team knows their customers. They know where to spend their marketing dollars to get the most effect and what messages will resonate with different groups. This customized marketing approach yields a valuable return-on-investment.

However, a one-size-fits-all approach to marketing guarantees marketers will spend more money for less effective results. When they don’t know their customers and their preferences, they must send a variety of messages using many different media.

Yet, many businesses don’t put much effort into learning about their customers.

Below are three examples of differences in customer behavior. You can see how different marketing strategies could be taken to meet their preferences and needs.

  • If your customers are primarily women, you need to know they behave differently from men. Marketing to women expert Marti Barletta writes about consumer behavior frequently, but in one particular post, “Guaranteeing Sales Success with Women,” she emphasizes that women are risk-averse and value warranties and guarantees more than men do.
  • If your customers are young, from 18-33, 80-89% of them can be found on social networking sites. But of those 74 or older who use the Internet, only 10-19% engage in social networking sites. This information is from Pew Internet.
  • If your customers are older and affluent, they might be choosing an urban lifestyle rather than a retirement community. Boston Consulting Group’s Michael Silverstein reports on his firm’s research that these consumers enjoy cooking at home and increasingly have more time to learn new hobbies.

How well do you know your customers? How many of them are women? What age groups buy from you the most? What are their incomes? Being able to answer these questions will help you customize your marketing plan with strategies that will reach your customers without wasting time and money on people who won’t buy from you.

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Posted in Advertising, Customers, Marketing Theory | No Comments »

Email Marketing: How to do it right

Friday, June 24th, 2011

Email marketing should be alive and well in your marketing plan. You may ask, “What about Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn? All the marketing buzz is about social media!” It’s true that social media is growing in popularity and marketing potential, as 61% of all Internet users visit these sites. But the same 2010 Pew Internet Research Poll shows that 92% of all Internet users send or receive email. With a great email marketing campaign, you can reach practically the entire Internet population.

Some assert that younger consumers are eschewing email, but Pew Internet research shows that’s not the case. No matter which generation your customers are, 80-90% of the ones using the Internet are using email. Considering that Older Boomers spend more than their younger counterparts, this knowledge could be particularly profitable.

Since email marketing is such an important marketing tool, I want to give you some tips for doing it right. Businesses can’t just blast coupons to all their past customers and expect success. Let’s use this Pillar to Post marketing email I received as an example of how to run a successful email marketing campaign:

See the full size Pillar to Post email here.

Pillar to Post is a home inspection company. Home inspection not a service customers often need to purchase. The company’s email marketing strategy does a great job of keeping in touch with past customers and helping them remember who to call if they (or their friends and family) need a home inspection.

I’ve analyzed the Pillar to Post email to help you learn how they did it. Following are some email marketing tips you can start using today in your own marketing:

Send emails that fortify your brand and your customers will care about. Share information that will be useful, interesting or funny. Coupons or other promotions can be great, but they can’t be your sole strategy. For customers to be eager to open your emails, you need to give them something to be excited about.

The first day of summer was June 21, and most homeowners perform their home maintenance on a seasonal schedule. Knowing this, Pillar to Post shared a fairly thorough Summer Maintenance Checklist with their customers. This information is not only helpful to homeowners, but it establishes Pillar to Post as an expert in the field of home maintenance as well.

Mind your timing. Communicate with customers too often, and they will unsubscribe from your list or mark your emails as spam. Pillar to Post sends quarterly emails, each with season-specific advice. They recognized their customers’ natural home maintenance patterns and customized their approach for them.

Keep your content fresh. Avoid sending duplicate emails, even if they are months apart. Customers have a knack for remembering when they’ve read something before and will unsubscribe if they believe a company is putting forth a lackluster effort to engage them.

Design a clean, easy-to-use template. The Pillar to Post example email isn’t the most beautiful or effective design the company could have developed, but it is simple and easy to read. It has the added benefit of using as few images as necessary- images don’t always load in your customers’ email inboxes, so avoid placing text in an image.

Depending on your type of business, your email marketing strategy could be markedly different from Pillar to Post’s. Pillar to Post has a long sales cycle- a customer likely will go years before needing a home inspection. A retailer, on the other hand, might expect customers to make purchases seasonally, monthly or even every single day. Your sales cycle determines your messages and frequency.

Take inspiration from this great email marketing example to refresh and revitalize your email marketing (or to start email marketing, if you haven’t already!).

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Posted in Advertising, Customer Experience, Design Theory, Graphic Design, Internet, Marketing, Marketing Theory, Technical Tips | 3 Comments »

Marketing Management: Keep Marketing!

Friday, June 3rd, 2011

Marketing management is an ongoing activity, and it’s key to your business’s success. Marketing is something you do everyday, whether you are conscious of it or not. From your customers’ perspective, every experience they have or belief they hold about your business has been crafted by your products and employes. Are you managing these experiences or leaving them to chance?

It’s fun and exciting to engage in a large marketing project like branding a new product or revitalizing your marketing with a social media blitz. But these large projects receive undue credit for a business’s success- it’s the day-to-day actions that cumulatively build success. Your customers need to be able to rely on you, not just when they first buy or when you launch a new campaign.

Here are some tips for managing your marketing:

  1. Set goals. Set daily, weekly or monthly goals for how the frequency of your marketing activities. For instance, your goals could be one local event per month, one email newsletter per month and one Facebook post per week.
  2. Make a schedule. Looming due dates have quite an effect on the human psyche. Set a firm schedule for your goals, like publishing a blog post every Wednesday morning.
  3. Monitor and make changes. Some marketing activities keep themselves going. For best results, you should monitor these activities and make changes based on your observations. For example, look at your Google AdWords each month to see what you can learn.
  4. Measure results. Managing your marketing can be hard work. Measure your results, so you can see which efforts are paying off and which aren’t. Stop the least effective ones, and put more energy into the producers.
  5. Show discipline. All of these tips are rooted in having the discipline to keep marketing. Discipline is the number one ingredient for marketing management success. It’s not sexy, but it’s true.

By managing your marketing, you will create a compelling story for customers to buy into. You just have to keep at it, everyday.

If you don’t have the time or energy to manage your marketing, you could look into hiring a professional to manage it for you. Conveniently, Zoo in a Jungle Marketing excels at marketing management. Contact me to talk about your business: Amanda Cullen, 513.833.4203, amanda@zooinajungle.com.

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Posted in Customers, Marketing, Marketing Theory | No Comments »

Mixed Marketing Messages

Friday, May 13th, 2011

When you send mixed marketing messages, your customers become confused, suspicious or even angry. Take, for instance, the dissonant image below. The dry cleaner says they love customers but damaged the suit they cleaned.

I believe the dangling button more than I believe the the dry cleaner’s promotion message telling me, “We Love Our Customers.” If they really loved me, they would be careful not to damage my family’s clothing- and they wouldn’t have been three days late delivering it. And it’s insulting to be told one thing and experience another. Were they hoping I wouldn’t notice?

Your customers evaluate you on every experience they have with your business or products. Having nice marketing messages simply isn’t enough to keep customers’ loyalty- you must earn it with every experience.

What mixed marketing messages might you be sending to your customers?

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Posted in Branding, Customer Experience, Marketing Theory | No Comments »

Marketing Tips: Naming a Business

Friday, May 6th, 2011

When you start a new business or develop a new brand, one of the most important early steps is naming it. A good name tells customers who you are, what you do, and what you can do for them.

If the business name is too generic (think American Business Group or Unified Solutions), customers won’t know what they can buy from you. A generic name means your marketing has to work harder to tell your story, both creatively and monetarily.

Alternately, a too-specific name can limit your future potential. Apple’s iTunes Store was painfully out of date with a business model that evolved to sell so much more than music. The company had to go through the expense and consumer education efforts of rebranding the service as the App Store. Apple still hasn’t solved the naming problem of iTunes, the application a consumer counterintuitively must use to sync the data on her iPhone.

To name a business or brand, the goal is to craft a name that is descriptive without limiting the future- and has good domain name possibilities. Some of my favorites include Fast Company, the magazine for innovative businesses; POM Wonderful, the delicious pomegranate juice, and Chik-fil-a, the chicken sandwich fast-food chain.

Or take the example of the business forclosure.com, which filed for bankruptcy last year. Very descriptive of the path the business took, don’t you think?

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Posted in Branding, Business Plan, Marketing Theory | No Comments »

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